United boss disappointed with missed opportunity

STEVE Bruce insists he has not lost the dressing room – despite Newcastle United’s uninspired performance against a weakened team at Brentford.

The Bees made six changes to their usual Championship side, but United were still second best in the capital as they crashed to their third defeat in six days, cranking the pressure up on the Toon boss.

When asked by The Chronicle if senior players are playing for him, Bruce replied: “I do think the players are playing for us [me and my staff]... maybe they’re just not playing well enough.

“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have lost tonight.

“It’s certainly not down to lack of effort or determination.”

And when asked on the depressing way Newcastle limped out of the cup after a golden chance to make it into the last four, Bruce responded: “I’m hugely disappointed because we’ve missed a wonderful opportunity to take the club into a semi-final.

“We simply haven’t played well enough to win the tie.

“We should have had enough to win the tie – that’s why I went as strong as I did.”

Bruce was also asked whether his side are capable of mustering a response when they face Manchester City on Boxing Day.

Bruce said: “I sincerely hope so. We hope we can get a few back, that’ll help.

“It would help if I had another centre-half and could put Isaac [Hayden] into midfield.

“I won’t make excuses. We had enough on the pitch to put in a better performance than we did.”

After United conceded 14 goal attempts to the Championship side, Bruce was asked why his players had performed so badly.

Bruce answered that his team had been “too slow in possession”.

He added:“We didn’t run forward enough or cause them enough problems – especially with the attacking players we had on the pitch.

“We have to accept what’s coming our way and the disappointment with that.”